Central Park Studios hostel, Manhattan

While in New York, Emily and I stayed at the Central Park Studios hostel. It seems worthwhile to say a few things for the benefit of future travelers, as I have often found the general hostel rating sites less than useful. The hostel consists of a number of apartment buildings that have been converted: each with several multi-bunk bedrooms, along with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. The rooms are pretty good: cool, fairly clean, and bug free. They provide decent sheets and towels. The kitchens are tolerable. The bathrooms are bad enough to make you wonder if there are any YMCA facilities nearby, but not quite bad enough to actually make you go looking for them. Ours featured a particularly nasty tub, icy shower, and spreading black fungus on the ceiling. The location is decent: two blocks from a subway line and close to a grocery store. One morning, Emily and I assembled avocado and cheese sandwiches on the sidewalk, rather than brave one of the less-than-sanitary and far-from-vegetarian looking restaurants in the immediate vicinity.

Bunks in the shared rooms are around $45 a night.

In my experience, the place is definitely better than the Hosteling International facility on Amsterdam, near Columbia University. That being said, first time visitors to Manhattan should be aware that they will probably pay twice as much as normal for a hostel, and have to settle for somewhere significantly louder and dirtier than would be available in most other cities.